From Pam Vetter in AmericanChronicle.com, an extended interview with Emily Perl Kingsley. As a writer on “Sesame Street” for 37 years, Kingsley was instrumental in featuring people with disabilities on the show and is saddened by the fact that this group is “still ridiculously under-represented” in the media.

“We are striving for equal opportunity and respect,” Kingsley explained. “This is the new civil rights movement as disability cuts through all divisions of ethnicity, race, socio-economic status, gender, geography, and sexual orientation. It affects all segments of the population and is the only minority group that anyone can join at any moment.”

“… In 1974, my son, Jason, was born with Down syndrome. I realized people like us had fallen off the face of the earth in terms of their representation in the media. No one reflected my family; in fact, no disabled people were seen anywhere in print media, commercials and rarely in the arts. It hit me in the face that we didn’t count and that my son didn’t rate as a human being. It was incredibly painful.”

The experience led Kingsley to realize that Sesame Street’s curriculum could include slower learners, and could show kids with disabilities participating in their communities.

“For a child in a wheelchair to see another child in a wheelchair on TV, it validates that child. It also is validating to the siblings of children with disabilities who often have their own issues around acceptance and understanding of their disabled brothers and sisters. Most importantly, for all of the other kids and society, it helps create an acceptance to see them in a comfortable, normal way of existence.”

Emily Perl Kingsley is the author of the essay, “Welcome to Holland.”

Her son Jason is co-author, with Mitchell Levitz of the book “Count us in: Growing up with Down syndrome.”

Also by Pam Vetter:  An interview with Larry Sapp II, who is trying to open doors for people with disabilities in Hollywood.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 9:35 am and is filed under civil rights, Down syndrome, intellectual/developmental disabilities, media, NOT2BEMISSED. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.